Blair will become a Catholic

[Errigal]

(I have no idea how true this is.)

Blair will become a Catholic

By Andrew Grice, Political Editor

Published: 22 June 2007


Tony Blair is "certain" to become a Roman Catholic shortly after he steps down from office next week, friends of the Prime Minister have told The Independent. They believe it will happen "sooner rather than later".
Mr Blair is likely to discuss his conversion with Pope Benedict XVI, with whom he will hold talks in Rome tomorrow after attending his last summit of European Union leaders in Brussels.


Aides say that in the private one-to-one meeting, he will also discuss his plans to set up a Blair Inter-Faith Foundation aimed at fostering closer links between people from different religions.


There have been persistent rumours that the Prime Minister would convert to Catholicism but Downing Street has always insisted that he remains a member of the Church of England.


Now friends say Mr Blair will formalise his already close affiliation to the Catholic Church. They say his "spiritual guide" in making the decision has been his wife, Cherie. They have brought up their four children as Catholics.
Before he became Prime Minister, Mr Blair regularly took communion with his wife and children at a Catholic church in Islington, north London. He ceased doing so in public after an intervention by the late Cardinal Hume, when he was leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales.


It is believed that Mr Blair decided to remain an Anglican while he was Prime Minister because of the possible legal and political difficulties of converting while in office.


Although Britain has never had a Catholic prime minister, the church has said there would be no constitutional bar to Mr Blair joining while he was still in office. But some lawyers believe the 1829 Emancipation Act, which granted civil rights to Roman Catholics, may still prevent a Catholic from becoming Prime Minister. It says that no Catholic adviser to the monarch can hold civil or military office.


Some constitutional historians have said a conversion could affect the relationship between church and state. As Prime Minister, Mr Blair makes recommendations to the Queen on the appointment of Church of England bishops - a role that Gordon Brown intends to hand back to the church when he succeeds Mr Blair as part of a raft of constitutional reforms. Church officials say this is a state role rather than a religious one and that the Prime Minister's own affiliations need not be a difficulty.


If he had converted while Prime Minister, Mr Blair might have faced questions about whether his religious views had affected his decisions.
Friends dismissed speculation that Mr Blair would become a deacon, a lay role within the Catholic Church, which would have allowed him to preside over ceremonies including marriage but not communion.


Mr Blair has discussed his conversion with Canon Timothy Russ, the priest whose parish includes Chequers, the Prime Minister's country retreat in Buckinghamshire. The formal process of the switch are understood to be being handled by Father John Walsh, a regular visitor to Chequers. The family stopped going to church after the Iraq war for security reasons but attend private mass.


Father Russ, a critic of the Iraq war, said in a 2004 interview that Mr Blair had asked him: "Can the Prime Minister of Britain be a Catholic?" At the time, the Prime Minister, asked whether he planned to covert, replied: "I am saying no. Don't they run this once a year? I think they do."


Mr Blair is keen to be involved in four issues after he leaves office: inter-faith work to promote dialogue between Christianity, Islam and Judaism; a "serious job" in the Middle East, where the White House has said he may become an envoy; climate change; and Africa. He is expected to carry out speaking engagements.


Some MPs have cast doubts on Mr Blair's ability to act as a go-between for the world's religions because of the Iraq war. His possible Middle East role also raised eyebrows because he was accused of taking a pro-Israeli line during the crisis in Lebanon last summer. But one friend said: "He is keen to do the inter-faith work. That will be a big priority."


As Prime Minister Mr Blair has been cautious about his religious beliefs. As Alastair Campbell, his former director of communications, once famously said: "We don't do God."

source

[Gavril]

Too late.

[Errigal]

I'm more than half serious when I say Blair should get the same treatment as Robert De Niro's character in The Mission. His actions have led directly to the suffering of so many thousands of Iraqis, Afghans and Serbs that he is contemptible.

[Milesian]

Are we to believe he has had some Road to Damascus conversion?
I can't say I'm overly interested in Blair's professed religion.
Britain's "peculiar" laws on Catholicism still amuse me however.
I mean it's over a century since they first had a Jew (Disraeli) as a Prime Minister yet even today modern, progressive, multicultural Britain still can't quite get it's head around the concept of a Catholic holding office

How quaint

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Milesian

Are we to believe he has had some Road to Damascus conversion?
I can't say I'm overly interested in Blair's professed religion.
Britain's "peculiar" laws on Catholicism still amuse me however.
I mean it's over a century since they first had a Jew (Disraeli) as a Prime Minister yet even today modern, progressive, multicultural Britain still can't quite get it's head around the concept of a Catholic holding office

How quaint

Exactly. Boris Berezovsky can issue endless threats to the Russian government from his London hideout, Lord Rothschild (along with two other Jews and a Nigerian refugee) can head the committee which awards Salman Rushdie a knighthood, but it's the Catholics who need special attention.

Tony's Jewish and American friends drag Britain into one disaster after another but at least we can be sure there is no one in a position of power to betray England to a new Spanish Armada.

[Milesian]

Errigal, it’s common knowledge that it’s simply a matter of time before the Pope has the whole of Europe under his sway.
Any complacency is simply asking for swarms of Swiss Guards turning up on your doorstep and conducting involuntary baptisms and conversions on the spot. When this happens, don’t come crying to me

I wonder how news of Tony’s turning will be received by a certain Fire & Brimstone preacher across the Irish sea……..

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Milesian

Errigal, it’s common knowledge that it’s simply a matter of time before the Pope has the whole of Europe under his sway.
Any complacency is simply asking for swarms of Swiss Guards turning up on your doorstep and conducting involuntary baptisms and conversions on the spot. When this happens, don’t come crying to me

I wonder how news of Tony’s turning will be received by a certain Fire & Brimstone preacher across the Irish sea……..

It would make absolutely perfect sense to the Rev Doc Paisley and his crew. Blair's public conversion would confirm so many long held theories for that bunch they'll patting each other on the back. "Eureka! What have I always told you fellas?"

[Menydh]

Mr Blair is likely to discuss his conversion with Pope Benedict XVI

That's unfair. I never had the chance to discuss my baptism with the Pope.

he will also discuss his plans to set up a Blair Inter-Faith Foundation aimed at fostering closer links between people from different religions.

Let him remain an Anglican!

Mr Blair is keen to be involved in four issues after he leaves office: inter-faith work to promote dialogue between Christianity, Islam and Judaism

Goes hand in hand with Spanish President Zapatero and his Alliance of Civilisations. But Zapatero is favouring Islam against the Catholic Church in Spain.

[Kernunnos]

He did so much to multiply immigrants to Britain that he can be considered the worst traitor in the history of Europe.

[Errigal]

Originally Posted by Breha

He did so much to multiply immigrants to Britain that he can be considered the worst traitor in the history of Europe.

He should spend the rest of his life in prison.

[Kernunnos]

The word to describe big smile Blair is an italian neologism: cattocomunista.

Cathocommie.

An horrible unnatural hybrid of catholic and communist.

In old terminology, anabaptist.

[Errigal]

Pope: Miracles hard to come by in Britain

From JASON LEWIS and NICK PISA in Rome -
Last updated at 08:39am on 24th June 2007

Tony Blair's eagerly awaited meeting with the Pope resulted in discomfort for the Prime Minister when he found himself on the receiving end of a stern lecture over his record in office.


During a 25-minute face-to-face audience in the Pontiff's private apartments, Pope Benedict XVI tackled Mr Blair on the continuing crisis in Iraq and the Middle East.


Italian news agency reports said Pope Benedict also made direct criticism of New Labour laws allowing greater stem cell research on human embryos, easy access to abortion, same-sex marriages, and adoption by gay couples.


Downing Street officials said the issue of gay adoption arose between Mr Blair and senior Vatican figures, not the Pope. But it was nevertheless an unexpected turn of events for Mr Blair, whose visit to the Vatican - his final foreign engagement as Premier - had been widely believed to presage his conversion to Catholicism.


Friction even seemed to emerge as the Pope and Prime Minister appeared in public for the cameras. Mr Blair, joined by his wife Cherie, presented Benedict with a framed set of three antique pictures of Cardinal Newman, who converted in 1845 after more than 20 years in the Church of England clergy and is now a candidate for sainthood.


Mrs Blair said: "I believe you are very familiar with him and he is on the journey to sainthood."


To which the Pope responded: "Yes, yes, although it is taking some time - miracles are hard to come by in Britain."


The gift was seen as a highly significant indication of Mr Blair's wish to convert to the Catholic faith.


After the meeting, the Pope's office issued a strongly worded statement, saying the two men had a 'frank discussion on the international situation, in particular the delicate question of the Middle East conflict'.


The actual wording of the communique contained the Italian phrase 'franco confronto', literally translated as 'frank confrontation' - inflammatory language seen as highly unusual in Rome.


The statement continued: "At the end, after an exchange of opinions on several laws recently passed by Parliament in Britain, he wished the Honourable Anthony Blair best wishes with regard to the fact he is leaving his position as Prime Minister."


It then commended Mr Blair's 'vivid desire to involve himself in particular for peace in the Middle East and for inter-religious dialogue'.


But the statement was seen as indicating the Vatican's continuing unease with the Iraq conflict, and also recent domestic legislation in Britain. In the language of diplomatic communiques, 'frank discussion' is customarily seen as code for an argument.


The statement was all the more surprising because the Vatican always uses carefully controlled language.


Previously, meetings with world leaders including President Bush have been described as 'warm and cordial', despite the Vatican's opposition to many of his policies and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.


Downing Street later talked in terms of a 'successful meeting'. A spokesman confirmed: "Private discussions included the Middle East."


A senior Catholic source emphasised the importance of the meeting to Mr Blair, and pointed to the symbolism of the Prime Minister's choice of gift.
One senior Catholic Church source said: "We are not talking about gifts of a walking stick and box of chocolates - this is a highly significant present to give the Holy Father.


"This audience was always going to be a very significant one with a lot of emphasis on the personal aspect and this gift of photographs of Cardinal Newman is a clear indication of the Prime Minister's path to conversion. It could not be more clearly spelt out."


Yesterday's audience in the library of the papal apartments was the third meeting between Pope Benedict and Mr Blair. They first met in 2005 at the funeral of Pope John Paul II and they then met last June.


For the latest visit, Mr Blair was accompanied by Cherie - their daughter Kathryn was also part of the official entourage but did not attend the audience.


Mr Blair flew to Rome straight from Brussels and landed just after 9.30am yesterday at Ciampino airport. He was then driven to Vatican City, where he met Cherie.


The official entourage also included Britain's ambassador to the Holy See, Francis Campbell, and Lady Carla Powell, who is the sister-in-law of Mr Blair's chief- of-staff Jonathan.


She has hosted the Blairs - and Tory Party leader David Cameron - at her country home on the outskirts of Rome. Cherie had spent the night there after arriving late on Friday.


The entourage also included French billionaire businessman Bernard Arnault, who is chief of luxury-goods firm LVMH and a friend of the Blairs.


Significantly, the party in addition included the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, Cardinal Cormac Murphy O"Connor.


At the end of Mr Blair's audience with the Pope, Cardinal Murphy O"Connor was invited in and the three had a ten-minute discussion.


Father Georg Ganswein, the Pope's personal secretary, said they had a 'meeting of six eyes' - a significant Italian phrase which means deeply personal and private.


A senior Vatican source added: "The fact that Cardinal Cormac was invited in at the end is highly unusual.


"It is not customary at all for church figures from the invited party's home nation to be present at an audience."


Again this was seen as a sign that Mr Blair was looking for the Catholic Church's approval of his future path - which, as well as conversion, includes setting up an interfaith religious foundation.


Mr Blair hopes that this will play a role in brokering peace in the crisis-torn Middle East.


Although the official communique made no mention of Mr Blair's conversion, Italian news reports said it had been discussed.


A Vatican source told The Mail on Sunday last night: "I am not going to comment on conversion but you can see for yourself from the signs and the gift."


Four years ago when Mr Blair met Pope John Paul II just before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, he was given a stern ticking-off by the late Polish pontiff.

source

[Ricardo Reis]

Does it really make any difference?

Protestant or Catholic he will still be considered a "Frank" in Greece.

[Armaggedon]

Has anyone mentioned Greece?